A little update

Hello everyone!  

Checking in from the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

"Look at all those trees!!!!"

We are getting settled in and really falling in love with this place.  I don't think we realized how much we missed seeing trees.  

When we were driving up here, Emma kept saying, "Mom!  Look at all those trees!"

The move has gone pretty well, we had a few bumps along the way. 

Like our car getting broken into, 

Brian's flight gear getting stolen, 

my sewing machine getting stolen, 

some of our documents getting stolen - which resulted in us being victims of identity theft - not fun!

HOWEVER, 

no one was hurt, 

our bank put an immediate hold on our money so we never lost a dime, 

the moving company took very good care of our stuff 

AND 

we were in our new house before Christmas! 

 PLUS, Santa brought me a new sewing machine.  Win-Win!

Isn't she pretty?  And the view is great too!  More trees!!!

As for a medical update, I think it's too early too tell how well this is working out.  But I'm on a mission.  I've done a lot of research about how diet effects the immune system and I've embarked on a scientific journey.  I've committed to eating a fairly strict Paleo diet for the next 6 months.

I know it's all the rage right now in the dieting/lifestyle change world, but after researching it and reading some blogs of people with autoimmune diseases, I'm convinced it's worth my best effort.  

This blog in particular:

Lupus and the Paleo Diet

made the biggest impact on my decision.

So what is Paleo?

This diet is based on eating food that cavemen would have been able to find.  Here is a good breakdown:

Basically, 

Do I think it's a cure... no.  But having been completely GRAIN FREE since 19 Dec (that's right, no breads, pasta, rice, cereal, cookies, cakes, doughnuts, cinnamon rolls, etc...), I can already tell it is helping.  I have noticed less water retention, less joint pain, and a few pounds gone from the scales.  Which is enough to keep me motivated to see it through.

At the top of my blog page, just under the title, I added a counter.  It displays how many days I've had lupus.  I'm hoping to add a second counter below that.  Which will count how many days I've been in remission. 

Wish me luck!!!  (feel free to leave me lots of encouragement along the way!)

And how are the girls doing you ask?

Wonderful!

We have a great park nearby with some really big slides.  And the first time Emma went down it she came out of the bottom too fast and landed on her bottom.  Got scared and wouldn't go back down it.  So I talked to her and encouraged her to keep saying, "I CAN go down the big slide.  I CAN do it."  After awhile, Brian went up to her room to see if she was okay and he said she was up there looking in her mirror, giving herself a little pep talk.  Repeating, "I CAN go down the big slide."  

I didn't think she actually took it to heart what I was saying, but she came downstairs again and said she wanted to try the big slide at the park now.

So we headed back to the park.

We kept waiting...and waiting.. and waiting.

Brian said he could hear her whispering at the top of the slide, 

"I CAN do this.  I CAN go down the big slide."

Then the next thing we knew... she came down and had the biggest smile on her face!

I was SO proud of her!  So was Brooklyn!

I saw this idea on Pinterest of how to save a little bit of money each week of the year, then at the end of the year you have a nice little stash of cash to spend.

Emma says she wants to spend it on buying Christmas gifts for everyone.  I told her that sounded like a great idea to me!

She's also been decorating my refrigerator with lots of colorful paintings!

And her and I have a very exciting trip coming up at the end of January!!!!  We are going to DC to celebrate my niece, Zoe's, first birthday!!!  Emma is beyond giddy about this trip.  Especially since it will be just the two of us.  

She's been marking X's on the calendar and counting the days!!!

We are going to do a little bit of sight seeing too!  I've never been to DC either, so this should be a really fun adventure!

Brookie Broo has been keeping busy as well.

Getting Daddy to zip her around the living room in her shopping cart...

... and getting stuck in her chair.

Whew!  That was a LONG post.  Thanks for making it all the way through!!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and is as excited for 2014 as we are!